San Francisco taxpayers, open your wallets: The races for district supervisor are starting to ramp up, and several candidates already have signed up for public financing, with more requests expected.

The city's Ethics Commission, which oversees the program, disbursed $284,867 as of Friday. There's no cap on how much can be allocated. The approximately $4 million available in the fund is probably more than enough to cover the eligible candidates running in Districts One, Three, Five, Seven, Nine and 11, said John St. Croix, the commission's executive director.

During the last set of supervisors races in 2010, 22 candidates collectively received almost $1.5 million in matching public funds. In 2009, 19 candidates got about $1.3 million. Those numbers paled in comparison to last year's race for mayor, when nine candidates collected $4.7 million of the public's money.

The idea behind public financing is to help level the playing field for candidates who may have a less prosperous base of supporters than their opponents.

In the Board of Supervisors contests this time around, five candidates have qualified for the funding so far. Leading the pack is David Lee, who is challenging incumbent Supervisor Eric Marin District One, the Richmond District. Lee has collected $126,349 in public financing; Mar has gotten $20,000, the minimum.

For candidates in District Seven, which is losing its incumbent, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, to term limits, three candidates have qualified for matching funds. F.X. Crowley, with $98,518, and Joel Engardio and Mike Garcia, with $20,000 each.

The most any one candidate can receive is $155,000, except for incumbents; their limit is $152,500.

Not every candidate, however, is eligible. As explained by St. Croix, a candidate for the Board of Supervisors must demonstrate that he or she has received at least $10,000 in qualifying contributions from at least 100 individuals who reside in the city (incumbent candidates must raise $15,000 in qualifying contributions from at least 150 residents).

Upon certification, eligible candidates receive a base grant of $20,000, and the allocation grows based on private contributions raised.

The last day for candidates to submit an application to qualify for public funds is Aug. 28.

A new sheriff in town: How does that old saying go? You can take the man out of Mesa, but you can't take the Mesa out of the man?

We're sure it's something like that. Suffice it to say, District Attorney George Gascónhasn't forgotten about his time as police chief in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, Ariz., or his old nemesis from those days, now-embattled Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Gascón is promoting a "Fundraiser to give Sheriff Arpaio the boot," where, along with Assemblyman Tom Ammianoand Supervisor David Campos, he's headlining an effort to raise money for one of Arpaio's Democratic challengers in the sheriff's race there, Paul Penzone.

Arpaio likes to bill himself as the toughest sheriff in the country. Many think "most notorious" is a more fitting moniker.

The headline-grabbing sheriff - who gained notoriety for his immigration sweeps, his investigation of President Obama's birth certificate, and his department's apparent failure to properly investigate more than 400 sex crimes, including dozens of reports of child molestations - is being sued for his office allegedly using systematic racial profiling. He also faces a broader civil rights lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department.

Gascón's clashes with the ol' sheriff are well known in Arizona. In 2009, on his last day on the job before decamping for San Francisco, Gascón told "Horizonte," an Arizona current events TV program: "I still have a hard time understanding how people that would generally be very smart people, very sophisticated, are willing to overlook a great deal of incompetence by the office of the sheriff's department in this county in how they deal with their primary functions. ... We know in policing that what (Arpaio's) doing makes absolutely no sense."

They continued after Gascón moved to San Francisco to take the police chief job, with Gascón sending Arpaio an invitation to an Italian dinner in North Beach - written in Spanish.

The fundraiser for Penzone, one of three Democratic challengers to Arpaio, is set for Aug. 23 at 5:30 p.m. at the Mission Language & Vocational School. Tickets range from $100 to $430 - the maximum individual campaign contribution under Arizona law.